DIGOS MAYOR DENIES HAND IN ANTI-DRUG VIGILANTES

DIGOS City Mayor Arsenio Latasa denied he has a hand in the summary
execution of drug pushers in Davao del Sur.

Latasa was reacting to a statement by Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte,
chair of the Regional Peace and Order Council, that a Davao del Sur mayor
has a hand in the series of killings. Duterte made this statement during the
RPOC meeting last week.

During the meeting, Duterte said the said mayor hired a band of notorious
killers, some of them police scalawags, to 'liquidate' drug traffickers in
Digos and some other areas in the province.

Latasa said that Duterte should have identified the mayor.

"Unta iyang gi-specify, lisud mo-react unless mongalan siya og tao (He
should have identified the mayor. It's difficult to react if the person is
not identified)," he said.

Latasa said he cannot afford to pay for a vigilante group to go after the
crooks in Digos.

Latasa, on the hand, expressed doubt over the pronouncement of Davao del Sur
Provincial Police Director Supt. Samuel Navaja who said the spate of
killings in the province is drug related.

Navaja's theory was based on the records of the victims who were mostly drug
pushers or users.

If there were other victims who were 'clean', the police said they were
victims of mistaken identity. Most of the victims had their ears snipped off
by the unidentified suspects.

Earlier, the police come up with a theory that the killings in the province
was due to rivalry within drug syndicates.

Early this month, at least two persons had been killed by police in a
shootout in Digos. The victims, police said, were among the members of the
vigilante group.

For the past few months, at least 20 people had already been killed in Digos
City.